


Stars Above Us, Heaven Below

by whelvenwings



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:26:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whelvenwings/pseuds/whelvenwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas painted the stars, every day.</p><p>Dean had bought him the art supplies at a local store, with electric lights overhead shedding a tacky light over the canvases and brushes and graphite pencils. He’d caught Cas watching an art show on the TV several times, always with narrowed eyes, his fingers unconsciously mirroring the strokes of the brush on the screen - and so, finally, he’d gone to the store to pick him up a few things. The place had smelt strange, clean and papery and sharp.</p><p>Cas had enjoyed practicing sketching and working with acrylics, but his instant favourites were the watercolours. Every morning, he was to be found sitting at the dining table, with newspapers spread out to catch the droplets of paint and painty water; he hunched over his work with round shoulders, his back a smooth curve.</p><p>And he painted the stars. Every day.<br/>________________________________________________________________<br/>Dean knows that Cas misses the stars, and space, and flight. What he doesn't know is that there's something else Cas is missing - and it's a lot closer to his newfound home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars Above Us, Heaven Below

Cas painted the stars, every day.

Dean had bought him the art supplies at a local store, with electric lights overhead shedding a tacky light over the canvases and brushes and graphite pencils. He’d caught Cas watching an art show on the TV several times, always with narrowed eyes, his fingers unconsciously mirroring the strokes of the brush on the screen - and so, finally, he’d gone to the store to pick him up a few things. The place had smelt strange, clean and papery and sharp.

Cas had enjoyed practicing sketching and working with acrylics, but his instant favourites were the watercolours. Every morning, he was to be found sitting at the dining table, with newspapers spread out to catch the droplets of paint and painty water; he hunched over his work with round shoulders, his back a smooth curve.

And he painted the stars. Every day.

At first, Dean had wondered whether that was the only watercolour technique that Cas’ favourite art show had covered. But he’d watched it himself, just dipping into the room once or twice when Cas had it on - _okay,_ and a couple of times when Cas hadn’t been there, too - and the guy showed you how to do trees, rivers, skies, the sea. Cats and rainbowed fish and people. But not stars.

Still, Cas painted them, over and over.

Sometimes they came out sparkling and electric blue against a wash of greyish black, the beaming rays picked out in minute detail, every little gleam of every single sun lovingly painted; other times, they were pastel and huge, great swoops of colour and celestial movement that stole Dean’s breath away just to look at them. Dwarfs and giants, the zodiac signs, the depth and beauty of the galaxies: Cas captured them again and again and again. He never tired.

One late evening, Dean was in the kitchen, sifting from one sheaf of paper to the next, enjoying the light show. Sometimes, he paused a little longer on one, his brow creasing as he studied it. The paintings were so beautiful, but they made him feel so… small. So stupidly small.

“Dean?” The sound of Cas’ voice surprised him; he almost dropped the stack of paintings guiltily, even though Cas had never shown any desire to hide his work. He neatened them into a careful pile in his hands, and then lay them back down on the table.

“Cas,” he said, tapping his fingers on the table, watching the movement instead of looking up into Cas’ eyes. He opened his mouth to go on, but couldn’t quite find the words. He glanced towards the paintings again, and he found himself pressing his lips together, frowning. They upset him, gave him a tightness in his chest.

“Is something wrong?” Cas didn’t move out of the doorway, and Dean could see the awkwardness in his pose out of the corner of his eye. Tuned into Dean’s mood, as usual, then. Dean almost wished Cas weren’t. He wanted to be upset about this without upsetting Cas, too.

“No, man, no. I was just looking at your paintings,” he said uselessly, filling in the conversation with cheap talk. “They’re great. And, you know, I’ve never seen the stars up close, so.” Cheap, cheap, cheap. Obvious. But Dean looked up to see Cas nodding, his eyes a little soft with tiredness. 

“I want to remember them,” he said simply. 

Dean’s lips parted slightly. 

Of  _course._ Cas had flown among the stars for all the millennia that he’d been alive. And now, he was grounded, wings burned, his freedom gone up in those same flames. He could never go back… but he wanted to remember. That was why he painted the stars.

“Let me know if you need more supplies,” was all Dean said roughly as he stepped away from the table, making for the door; Cas moved aside to let him pass. “Oh, and - Cas?”

Cas turned around, his eyebrows raised. He was wearing his painting t-shirt, the old AC/DC one of Dean’s with the hole in the shoulder. He was going to paint tonight, even though his body was loose with tiredness, each blink slow and sleepy.

“Yes, Dean?”

Dean swallowed.

“Just… you know that - that you’re here to stay, right? Uh, I mean, if you want to. There’s no pressure. I just - you’ve always got a home here.”  _A home,_ Dean mocked himself. Cas was sitting ragged and dry-eyed in this damn kitchen every night, dreaming of the stars where he belonged, and Dean was trying to comfort him… by calling this feeble hole in the ground a  _home_? Home for Cas was space. Home for Cas was limitless, weightless, lawless freedom. Home for Cas was far, far away. Dean was being ridiculous. He turned to head out the door, not bothering to wait for Cas’ reaction.

“Dean,” said Cas’ voice. Dean paused, his back to Cas. He heard footsteps coming up behind him, the soft _hush-hush_ of Cas’ socked feet. “You don’t seem happy. I’m sorry, if my paintings…”

“Your paintings are beautiful, Cas,” Dean said, dipping his head low, not turning around. He couldn’t let Cas see the way his lips were curving downwards of their own accord; he could feel the hurt resting in his eyes, too bright, too fresh to be hidden.

“Perhaps,” Cas said quietly. “They make me sad, too.”

“They do?” Dean did turn, then, caught by surprise. He watched Cas react to the expression on his face: the raising of the eyebrows, the tilting of the head.  _God,_ Cas was so… so…  _something._ Something beyond words. It struck Dean like a blade through the chest, the same way it always did.

“They make both of us sad,” Cas said. “I should stop. But - I like painting the stars.”

“Do what you like to do, Cas,” Dean said, and when Cas looked unconvinced, he reached out and put his hand on Cas’ shoulder.  _Mistake._ His heartrate soared, Cas’ skin so warm, so close under the thin material of the t-shirt. He blinked, pulled himself together. “You do whatever it is that you like to do, OK? We’ve spent too many goddamn years doing things that we don’t want to do. So if you find something you’d like to do, you  _do_ it, alright? No matter -” he swallowed, hard, Cas’ eyes on him - “no matter  _what_  it is.”

“Dean -” Cas began.

“No matter what,” Dean insisted, looking into Cas’ eyes, hoping that he’d understand - what? How intensely Dean felt - wanted -  _needed_?

“Dean,” Cas said, shifting closer, his eyes flicking down to Dean’s lips and back up - the word a whispered question, a prayer, a statement all in itself. “Dean, I…” He brought a hand up, hesitant; it hovered for a moment over Dean’s shoulder, ready to match Dean’s pose - and then curled over like a flower opening, fingers blooming to a petal-soft touch against Dean’s cheek.

Dean’s breath left him in a gasp. He swayed ever so slightly, the sheer strength of the lightest of touches making his legs weak beneath him.

“Cas,” he said, his voice hoarse; Cas was watching him with a gaze as bright as a thousand candles. He wondered if he looked that - that radiant, that happy. He felt it… he felt as though - as though a sudden light, intense and  _hot_ and all-consuming, was pouring out of him; he swore the lights should dim when he blinked, it was so powerful. It shook him, took him by surprise, how  _much_ he felt this.

“I have been looking up,” Cas said, the words spoken quietly, drawn out low over a lover’s breath. He was so close, so close, his eyes locked with Dean’s. “But I was wrong. I should have looked here. I should have looked at you.”

They moved into each other’s space in the silence between shared heartbeats, two planets colliding in inexorability. Chest to chest, brow to brow, and then - lips pressed, arms wrapped, breath stopped and time stopped and joy, joy too great to bear… and they didn’t let go; they were inseparable through the whole of that glorious night, never losing their touch on the other, whispering words they’d kept dimmed and hidden for months and  _years_ of quiet, quiet want.

The next morning, Dean opened his eyes to find the bed empty.

He frowned, rubbing the stiffness out of his neck and squinting around the room. The only thing left of Cas was his scent, strong and sweet on the pillow he’d used. Dean buried his face in it for a moment, just one moment -  _okay_ , maybe two - before rolling out of bed.

“Cas?” he called.

“In here,” Cas replied, his voice echoing from the kitchen. Dean grabbed a t-shirt and a pair of boxers, pulling them on and shuffling down the corridor, following the sound. He rounded the doorway to see Cas hunched over a painting.

For a moment, his heart dropped into his stomach - 

And then Cas turned, and with the table unobscured, Dean could see the painting that he had been working on.

“I want to remember,” Cas explained with a gentle smile, as Dean approached, placing his hand on Cas’ shoulder. He looked down into his own eyes, painted green and bright and brilliant, wide with disbelief, afire with passion, with hope.

“I thought you liked painting the stars,” Dean said roughly, offering Cas the shakiest of small smiles, overwhelmed.

“I still do,” said Cas. He reached up, pressing his hand over Dean’s. “I still am.”


End file.
